Perry Belmont House
The Perry Belmont House, sometimes referred to as the International Temple of the Order of the Eastern Star is the world headquarters of the General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, one of several organizations affiliated with Freemasonry. The building is located at 1618 New Hampshire Avenue, Northwest in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
The International Temple was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 8, 1973.
History
The building, Beaux-Arts in style, was built from 1907 to 1909 for Perry Belmont, son of August Belmont and grandson of Matthew C. Perry. The trapezoidal plot of land was purchased for $90,000, and construction cost $1.5 million. Perry Belmont served as a United States Congressman from New York, and later as the United States' ambassador to Spain. French architect Ernest-Paul Sanson designed the building, having built several chateaux in Europe; the construction architect on site was Horace Trumbauer.The house takes the form of a free-standing pavilion in the French style, with a single storey articulated with slender Ionic pilasters over a channel-rusticated basement. A balustrade with stone urns masks a discreet Mansard attic storey. In the interiors Sanson used wrought-iron fixtures from France, wood from Germany, and marble from Italy. During Belmont's lifetime, the house was used for only the winter months, when Belmont hosted lavish parties for Washington's elite.
In 1919, Edward, Prince of Wales, was a guest of the Belmonts ; there, he conferred medals upon American soldiers whom the United Kingdom wished to honor for their service in World War I.
The Belmonts continued to use the building until 1925. Beginning in the 1920s, the Belmonts increasingly spent time away from Washington, and the house was mothballed for nearly a decade. Perry Belmont, a Freemason, sold the building to the General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star in 1935 for $100,000, on the condition that the Right Worthy Grand Secretary would live in the building.
On May 8, 1973, the Belmont House was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The building was designated a contributing property to the Dupont Circle Historic District in 1978. The 2009 property value of the Belmont House was $7,475,100.